Amalgamation
by Ashes2
Summary: Thousands of years after the War of the Ring, Melkor has returned to the earth. The Elves seek to save a dying world while humanity refuses to die. What hope do the children of Eru have when the final battle draws near?


Amalgamation

Disclaimer: All character within, excepting the originals, belong to the J. R. R. Tolkien Estate Ltd.

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The Eldar had left Middle Earth.

With the destruction of the One Ring, peace was assured. The mortal race would go on, interwoven the Elven blood in their veins. Their soft elegance no longer graced Arda's soil, leaving it lacking that calmness which mortal creatures never could fully define. The Noldor and the Teleri, whose descendants then became the Sindar and the Silvan, they fled the world of death and rebirth to return to Aman. There, in the presence of the Valar and the ancient leaders of their people, did they find everlasting peace. No more could the great evils or wars strife their natural purity. Never again would they have to come face to face with the Orcs and see the darkness that may lie within even the brightest of Elvenkind. The Undying Lands were free of revolution, empty of grief. Here, only song and laughter touched their lips.

The last of the elves beached the shores of Alqualondé; among them were the Peredhil princes, and Celeborn, the last Lord of the Golden Wood. They landed gracefully on the sandy ground, laden with ornamental robes and slippered feet. Smiling to one another in reassurance, the elf-lords entered the realm of their ancestors and home of their people. Earthly concord had ultimately been realized. The Dark Lord had been defeated, and the world now held hope.

Eru watched as the Earth he created changed.

The continents fragmented, shattering into islands and birthing new landmasses. The race of men adapted. As their creator loved them, he bestowed upon their flesh the ability to change as need be. Elesser had been king of Gondor, and Rohan bent to his will; yet in the deep south and far east, men had little or care for the governments of the Western Men.

Over time, those governments faded in to history. Fickle with their discrimination, the men of the world inter-married with foreign clans, or shunned each other completely. They altered in appearance and culture as the very land itself. Empires were born, matured, and died. Raiders plundered magnificent palaces. Slaves revolted. Wars for land, food, and power overtook the earth. Eras passed were only insurrection reigned. Women cried and sang as they brought forth more solders for their kings and husbands on the birthing bed. Scholars created magnificent works of art. Languages were lost, born and re-written. The great allegories and rhetorics of wise masters were given over to logic and mathematics, and thus, written works of no equal were recorded.

Eru's gifts took effect. Skins grew as dark as ebony ash as the sun burned men's bodies. Some like creamy mocha, warding off Anor's fire. Others became night-sky black to protect their frail mortal muscles and tissue. When nourishment was withheld, they conserved energy by reaching less in stature. Eyes grew to almond-shaped slits, and still more gaped wide like the moon.

They factioned. Like paired with like, perpetuating their respective characteristics. The great lessons of history were forgotten. They sought to dominate. Not only for power did they do this, but security.

Enslaving brother and stranger alike, the natural feeling of sympathy and remorse were disregarded on the battlefields. Medicine was refined, architecture furthered. Men remained as children. Individuals learned from past mistakes and then died, leaving their posterity with pure knowledge and little wisdom.

The Dark Lord Sauron was destroyed, but the first Dark Lord, Sauron's master Melkor, remained. His life force hidden away as the edge of existence by Manwë and his siblings; yet he watched as well. He saw men conquer and kill. He watched as boys were raped, false gods exalted, power revered. And he smiled. The race of men would quell itself out of existence. Eru would weep.

Unaware of his gaze, men continued.

And then, he saw it. They began to desire peace. The ways of their fathers were no longer enough. Men had conquered the earth and tamed nature. They could build mountains, islands, structures thousands of fathoms tall. Here were humans who believed themselves to be equal to gods.

Weapons had been amassed with the power to annihilate more than even Eru thought his children were capable of creating. The Creator designed these beings to be curious, to love knowledge and all that it offered; they had taken this inborn urge and used it to understand the very workings of physical matter. Men easily comprehended plants and nature more the elves would have ever tried. How a child grew, osmosis and the splitting of cells, the excretion of dead protein through skin pours - all of this became simple common knowledge. Knowledge which was used to kill. Bio-engineered weapons that rotted the body from the inside, missiles, nuclear bombs capable of murdering millions at one time, preservatives in their food slowly giving them cancer, noxious gases breathed on the streets of cities. This, Melkor thought, was the best Eru could come up with? How pathetic. They needed his rule. The needed a being of the utmost power to keep their destruction in check.

In the time long past Melkor had hurt them, instilling evils within their souls and bodies that would never be eradicated. To the Elves he had given the gift of the Orcs. But to men, he had given the darkness of his own soul. Beings indistinguishable for the mortal race, yet whose veins ran thick with the same black blood of all his creations. They were sent to interbred with the world, giving him a foothold in earth. All the men of the Arda were his children as well, the potentiality of cruelty was in their nature. All that was needed was for those seeds to be watered.

However, in spite of all this they yet still wished for peace.

And they were beginning to achieve it.

Whatever may now lie in the depths of the human heart, they were still what Eru had intended them to be. The mortal race was as their older brothers, the First Born, were: they were beings of light, and they had power over any darkness that universe could offer. Even Melkor could see this. He had strength enough to conquer the Mortals, this he was sure of, but he could not fight while he was trapped. Though there were Many humans who had successfully fed their darkness or had the good fortune to be born to fathers who knew of Melkor's purpose for the earth, the Light Men greatly outnumbered them. For the most part they were kept subdued through a constant borage of distraction. Television, videogames, overtime. The most affluent had the least time to simply think and observe the world. Those that _knew_ something was wrong, they had no word for it, no description. Just a knowing deep in the depths of their being that something was missing. Something was stolen from them and they could not even remember what it was. For most, this was not even a conscious thought. But those who able to awaken began openly rebelling against the system they were born into.

Melkor seethed. His father Eru had done little to encourage what they were becoming, but he had created the damned race. These men were loved by him. Even when the elves thought this race wholly incapable, he still loved them and he gave all his faith to their crestfallen souls.

Pain was still raging on the earth. Men often hurt each other and gave no care for their actions. Slowly, they were evolving. They had been crying out for justice and they were finding that they were the ones capable of creating it.

Melkor would watch no longer.

He was confined, but not helpless. His minions and servants could still be found, as long as one knew where to look. The First Dark Lord called them out of hiding and bid them agitate the mortal people. Appearing as spies and innocents, they weaved lies. Leaking information to the proper sources, crafting distrust between nations, fracturing the strongest of brotherhoods; these was their methods. Treaties and ambassadors did little to pacify the angered governments. A great war erupted.

The soil and the air were contaminated by nuclear weapons. The only way to grow food was through extensive genetic alteration of fruit-bearing plants and grains. Yet even these were poisoned. Millions were born with deformities. Billions more died. Plants could no longer grow with their previous abundance. The long discounted oxygen-giving algae in the ocean were wiped out. With no way to replenish the earth's precious revitalizing gases, the planet slowly became invalid. The human population was reduced to no more than five million.

It was not Eru who cried, but Yavanna, Giver of fruits and Queen of the Earth. She wept a thousand tears. The first and the last of these became the purest diamonds. Aulë kept them, and did his best to comfort his wife.

Eru, The One, looked down upon the second born with overwhelming sadness. They had never known the Earth as the Eldar had. Their hearts were of a different nature and their minds spoke a different language. They could not feel it screaming pain. He sighed desolately, and turned to his son, Manwë, first of all Kings. The End is coming, he said. Melkor is accelerating its approach.

After a hundred millennia in captivity, Melkor summoned his servants. He gathered his power and broke free of the prison he had been encrusted into by the Valar. He lives amongst the mortals in deep concealment. The Powers of Arda were not able to re-capture him. He veiled himself for Many years, seeking to control the tenuous hearts of men.

In one final act of desperation, an assembly was held in Valimar. Representatives from the furthest borders of Valinor came. Here it was decided what action would be taken. The Three remaining Istari, Olόrin, Alatar and Pallando, would return to the world of men, bringing with them the Eldar who wished to accompany them. As it was, two thirds of the elves agreed to do so. Ilúvatar appointed them to the task of restoring life to the world, so the Last Days could be lived in peace.

Nienna grieved for their passing from paradise, and Vairë weaved hope and kismet into their deeds. Tulkas Astaldo blessed them with strength and courage while his sister Oromë bid them watch over the animals of the Earth. Varda asked that they be attentive of unlikely friends. Eleven lords and kings nodded in acquiescence and lightly stepped aboard their elegantly carved vessels, painstakingly prepared for journey to the ugly imagery that awaited them in the home they left in the care of mortals.

Hours later, the last ships lost sight of their perfect paradise to the tranquil monotony of subtle waves and pallid skies.

The Sundering had ended. The Amalgamation has begun.


End file.
